Mark Brivik sues FDLE agent, former partners over arrest

Friday

Sep 16, 2011 at 2:16 PM

After the River Meadows project, on the Upper Manatee River, went bad, investors and the law went after Brivik.

By MICHAEL BRAGA

Former Longboat Key resident Mark Brivik has lashed back at the people responsible for sending him to jail for 24 days in summer 2009 on allegations of fraud and securities violations that were later dropped.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Tampa's U.S. District Court, Brivik accused Claudia Law, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent who brought the case against him, and seven members of his former investment group of false arrest and malicious prosecution.

"Law performed a haphazard investigation of a complicated real estate transaction between Mr. Brivik and other business associates," Brivik's lawyer, Blake Horwitz, said in a statement. "She so profoundly misunderstood the nature of the transaction that she interpreted traditional business dealings as illegal activity."

Brivik's suit also accuses fellow investors -- John Murray, Steve Murray, Joseph Russo, Richard Zimmerman, Ronald Carr, Andre Panet-Raymond and Abraham Smajovits -- of giving false information to the FDLE so that he would be arrested and prosecuted.

"All allegations of misconduct by Mr. Brivik were reviewed by the State's Attorney after Mr. Brivik was jailed for 24 days," the statement said. "Following that review, each and every charge was dropped."

"There was not a single shred of evidence of misconduct," Brivik is quoted as saying.

But two former investors -- Carr and Russo -- as well as Panet-Raymond's wife, Marlene, said they stood by their allegations, though they acknowledged problems with the FDLE investigation.

A spokesman for the FDLE said it was the agency's policy not to comment about pending litigation.

Blake Horwitz, the Chicago attorney representing Brivik, said FDLE agents bungled the case against Brivik by not having it carefully reviewed by a state attorney prior to Brivik's arrest.

Horwitz, an attorney who specializes in suing governments and law enforcement agencies for heavy-handed and wrongful arrests, said FDLE agents "are not lawyers but have an unfettered ability to lodge powerful charges which can throw innocent civilians and (legitimate businessmen) in jail. This practice must be called into question."

Now living in Orlando, Brivik -- a disbarred South African attorney who was wanted in that country for allegedly stealing money from client trust accounts at the time of his departure for the United States in 1994 -- made a good living as a real estate investor and consultant until the market downturn. In October 2008, he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection from creditors who were owed $16.2 million.

The River Meadows project, which included 22 acres on the Upper Manatee River, was one of Brivik's last major deals, and it went bad 18 months after he had raised $4.5 million from seven investors and $5.3 million from First Priority.

Believing they had been defrauded, the seven investors sued Brivik and his attorney, Robert Messick of Sarasota's Icard Merrill firm, in late 2007, accusing them of withholding critical information about the project that would have dissuaded them from investing.

Central to their argument was a supposed "option property," five acres of riverfront land with views that investors say would have raised total values. Investors said in their suit that Brivik and Messick told them Brivik had a contract to buy that property when he only had right of first refusal to buy it if the owner chose to sell within three years.

Brivik and Messick disputed those allegations, but Icard Merrill later agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle the case as long as that settlement not be construed as an admission of guilt.

River Meadows investors also took their case to the FDLE, whose agents arrested Brivik in July 2009 on charges of organizing a scheme to defraud and conducting fraudulent sales of unregistered securities.

Six month later, the State Attorney's Office dropped all of the charges.

Brivik is seeking redress for having been "arrested, incarcerated, criminally prosecuted, and thrust into the public spotlight for crimes he did not commit," his lawsuit states.

In his suit, Brivik argues that he never misrepresented any facts about the option property. He claims that his seven co-investors knew it did not exist, but conspired to lie about it to the FDLE. He also claims that the agency knew the allegations were false, but proceeded anyway.

Brivik was "was incarcerated, caused to expend thousands of dollars for the successful defense of the criminal action, subject to severe diminution of his reputation in the local business and international community, and experienced emotional pain, suffering and distress," according to the suit, which seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, costs and attorney's fees from his former accusers.